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How did I miss this? File it under “more things you discover while looking for a photo of Roger Ebert.” It’s the Uncyclopedia, a web parody of Wikipedia. I, of course, had to go to Wikipedia to learn the background, which may have caused a rift in the space/time continuum, whatever that is. Ummm…sorry.

It was started by some guy in early 2005 and quickly outgrew its first host. It now has tens of thousands of articles in dozens of languages. It follows the Wiki model of user-generated content, which is orders of magnitude dicier to do with humor than it is with factual content. Articles range from really pretty funny to not particularly funny at all, most appear to be largely unfunny with occasional bursts of “ha!”…but every single one is funnier than the departmental Monthly Highlights for September, which is what I’m supposed to be reading right now.

One recurring gag is rampant quoting of Oscar Wilde, “a man whose wisdom touches on nearly every conceivable topic, often without consent, which in turn has led to several lawsuits.”

The Weasel was first manufactured in 1967 by SONY as an incontinence aid and radar system. Its ability as a device to invoke zero-gravity (normally using bovril) fuelled its instant popularity and led to the GREAT WEASEL BOOM OF 1968

Weasels are reptiles of family muselidae and are honorary members of the von Trapp family.

Weasels are known to be more or less constantly engaged in family feuds.

Fossil evidence from a long, long time ago has suggested that the weasel is in fact a type of crocus (the band, or the flower) and should be classified accordingly as a member of family iridaceae, though the scientists conducting this research were nearing retirement and not very keen on being particularly correct in their conclusions. GOD, MY HEAD’S ITCHY!

Little is ever made of the involvement of weasels in the Gambino crime family, or their studio work with Sly and the Family Stone. Needless to say, “weasel” is synonymous with “family” in many walks of English life, except Wales, (a mythical country, thought to lie off the coast of Nova Scotia. Only accessible during a full moon, from the east), where weasel is spelled Llwchynghwyllio(pronounced luncheon willie).

The proper term referring to two or more weasels is a Limited Liability Partnership of weasels.

The head of our Research division gave a talk the other day. He’s having a hard time getting our labs fully staffed because of a shortage of H-1B visas. That’s the one they call the “highly qualified” visa, though that isn’t exactly accurate; it’s technically a “specialty occupations” visa. Congress has recently throttled back on them, from a cap of 190K down to 65K.

To which I can only say — you have GOT to be fucking KIDDING me! They’re trying to jam twenty million sullen agripeasants down our throats but can’t be arsed to poach a hundred thousand of the world’s smartest people?

Our laboratories are like the U-freaking-N up in there; I assume it’s that way in research labs across the country. Lots of Indians and Chinese, but we’ve nicked a fair number of Europeans and other exotics, too. I’ve worked with dozens of them over the years. I don’t care where they come from, these people make fantastic Americans! They’re smart, enthused and grateful.

I know, I know…IT types scream bloody murder about H-1B visas. Screw ’em. Apologies if any of you are corporate IT types, but in my two-decades-and-a-bit driving a desk, I never met one that wasn’t grossly overpaid and underperforming. And arrogant about it. Bill Gates is not proof God wants half-assed incompetent computer geeks to rule the world, okay?

Brain drain on the rest of the world? Fucking A! That’s the beauty of it! Continued American hegemony by absorption. We build a country smart people want to live in and then invite them to come live in it.

So what say we propose no cap on H-1B visas. None. Send them all — we’ll take them! And make it a path to citizenship (the current visa is six years and you’re out). I think it’s a winning antidote to the racism charge that got hung ’round our necks after that stupid immigration bill fiasco. Shoot, send in the Mexican PhDs, too!

Slogans? How about, “we judge no man by the color of his skin, but of the quality of his resume”? Hm.

I was looking at pictures of sphinx cats the other day, and it just popped into my head: do cats have navels? They should, shouldn’t they? They have umbilical cords.

I figured if anybody was going to know the answer to the question, a cattery that breeds sphinx cats would. So I wrote to a couple of them. I didn’t sound like a nutter or anything. I write enough business email that I can sound reasonably sane when I choose. But nobody wrote me back.

Now, someone has actually written a book called Do Cats Have Bellybuttons? The answer is yes, they do. They aren’t neat round holes, on account of mama cats don’t have scissors, but they have a little scar there.

So I stayed up too late and drank too much last night in an orgy of weaselly exuberance. Yeah, I know…not exactly “stop the presses” stuff. But then I remembered I have my annual performance evaluation this morning.

Swell.

Eh. We’re talking “job” not “career” at this point. And my boss is pretty cool. I think it’ll go okay. I’ve been practicing:

Did y’all see this? A new photo album has turned up showing the staff of Auschwitz at play. There are few other pictures of Auschwitz before it was liberated, most notably the so-called Auschwitz Album which shows the death camp side of the death camp. The contrast is contrasty.

Included are eight new photos of Joseph Mengele, my own personal choice for Evillest Nazi. Hitler may have run the show, but he was pretty squeamish about getting his hands dirty. Mengele, on the other hand, just loved his work. Kids really responded to him, too…right up to the moment he dripped acid in their little eyes, trying to turn brown eyes blue.

So Dawn mentions it’s her birthday. So I think about what sort of graphic goes with “Dawn” and, naturally, the first thing that pops into my head is this little guy, above.

It was drawn by Robert Wood, a young commercial artist, in 1907. It’s a postcard mailed from Belgium inviting a woman named Phyllis Dimmock to a pub called the Rising Sun in the North London neighborhood of Camden Town. Phyllis was described at trial as a prostitute, but she may simply have been extraordinarily liberal with her favors. Also, she collected postcards. Isn’t that nice?

It is signed “Yours to a cinder, Alice.”

On the morning of September 12, Phyllis was found by her common-law husband lying in bed with her throat cut from ear to ear. There was blood in the basin and a straight razor beside it. Her postcard collection was strewn about the room, as if the murderer had tried unsuccessfully to find something. Or really hated postcards.

Later, this card turned up in the back of a drawer. When it was reproduced in the papers, an old girlfriend identified Robert Woods as the author. He talked her out of going to the police and asked her to give him an alibi. She couldn’t resist running her mouth about it, though, and word got out. He eventually admitted being the last person seen with Phyllis on the night of the 11th.

Long story short: tried and acquitted.

His case was argued by Edward Marshall Hall, who went on to be become one of the most famous British barristers, evah. Wood was the first criminal defendant in Britain to give evidence at his own trial and still be acquitted (despite the fact that he didn’t make a very good impression). The case became known as the Camden Town Murder.

The execrable painter Walter Sickert lived in Camden Town at the time and painted several enigmatic, crap pictures of the Camden Town Murder. Several writers — most recently and famously Patricia Cornwell — think Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Which is tosh, rubbish and bullshit.

That makes Wednesday before last the hundredth anniversary of the Camden Town Murder. Happy birthday, Dawn!

Yet Another Bad Album Cover Site. I never get enough of these. I grew up thinking the world was a hideous, terrifying place…but it turns out, it was just the Seventies. Whew!

This site is particularly fun, as it’s the man’s actual vinyl album collection, and he offers digitized samples of the delights in store. Also, links to CD’s and DVD’s (uh-huh…some of this stuff has been recently re-released). Yes, they sound EXACTLY the way they look.

I found this trawling through my stats page. Whenever someone finds sweasel.com through a Google search, I always run the same search and see where I place next to the competition. This was an MSN search of “peanut lady fuck.” I do not actually have any posts about “peanut lady fuck” (and neither did this guy), but search engines aren’t very clever about these things. As long as those three words ever appeared together on a page (including comments), it’ll register a hit. That’s right; you guys contribute to my search engine mash-up weirdnesses. Thank you!

I am not an authoritative “peanut lady fuck” source (though I will be now). I placed on page eight. Somebody clicked through eight pages of links searching for his answer. Just, damn.

I am, however, hit #5 on page one for “supernumery nipples”!

That thumping sound you hear is my grandmother. In heaven. Wagging her tail.